Tripwire

Hobie said. “Aren’t we?”
    “You bet,” Tony said. “But not as much fun as we’re going to have.”
    Hobie laughed and Stone stirred. Marilyn ducked down and helped him to a sitting position on the kitchen floor. Hobie stepped over and picked up the severed hand from the countertop.
    “This came off the last guy who annoyed me,” he said.
    Stone was opening and closing his eyes like he could make the scene change by wiping it away. Then he stared out at Sheryl. Marilyn realized he had never met her before. He didn’t know who she was.
    “Into the bathroom,” Hobie said.
    Tony pulled Sheryl to her feet and Marilyn helped Chester. Hobie walked behind them. They filed into the big office and crossed to the bathroom door.
    “Inside,” Hobie said.
    Stone led the way. The women followed him. Hobie watched them go and stood at the door. Nodded in at Stone. “Tony’s going to sleep the night out here, on the sofa. So don’t come out again. And spend your time fruitfully. Talk things over with your wife. We’re going to do the stock transfer tomorrow. Much better for her if we do it in an atmosphere of mutual agreement. Much better. Any other way, there could be bad consequences. You get my meaning?”
    Stone just stared at him. Hobie let his glance linger on the women and then he waved the severed hand in farewell and pulled the door closed.
    JODIE’S WHITE BEDROOM was flooded with light. For five minutes every evening in June, the sun dropped away to the west and found a slim straight path through Manhattan’s tall buildings and hit her window with its full force. The blind burned like it was incandescent and the walls picked it up and bounced it around until the whole place was glowing like a soft white explosion. Reacher thought it was entirely appropriate. He was lying on his back, happier than he could ever remember getting.
    If he’d thought about it, he might have worried. He could remember mean little proverbs that said things like pity the man who gets what he wants. And it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive. To get something you want after fifteen years of wanting it could have felt strange. But it didn’t. It had felt like a blissful rocket trip to somewhere he had no idea existed. It had been everything he had dreamed it would be, multiplied by a million. She wasn’t a myth. She was a living breathing creature, hard and strong and sinewy and perfumed, warm and shy and giving.
    She lay nestled in the crook of his arm, with her hair over his face. It was in his mouth as he breathed. His hand was resting on her back. He was rocking it back and forth over her ribs. Her backbone was in a cleft formed by long, shallow muscle. He traced his finger down the groove. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. He knew that. He had felt the scrape of her lashes on his neck, and his shoulder could feel the shape of her mouth. It could decode the feel of the muscles in her face. She was smiling. He moved his hand. Her skin was cool and soft.
    “I should be crying now,” she said, quietly. “I always thought I would be. I used to think, if this ever, ever happens, I’ll cry afterward.”
    He squeezed her tighter. “Why should we cry?”
    “Because of all those wasted years,” she said.
    “Better late than never,” he said.
    She came up on her elbows. Climbed half on top of him, her breasts crushed into his chest. “That stuff you said to me, I could have said to you, exactly word for word. I wish I had, a long time ago. But I couldn’t.”
    “I couldn’t, either,” he said. “It felt like a guilty secret.”
    “Yes,” she said. “My guilty secret.”
    She climbed up all the way and sat astride him, back straight, smiling.
    “But now it’s not a secret,” she said.
    “No,” he said.
    She stretched her arms up high and started a yawn that ended in a contented smile. He put his hands on her tiny waist. Traced them upward to her breasts. Her smile broadened to a grin. “Again?”
    He nudged her sideways with his hips and rolled her over and laid her down gently on the bed. “We’re playing catch-up, right? All those wasted years.”
    She nodded. Just a tiny motion, smiling, rubbing her hair against the pillow.
    MARILYN TOOK charge She felt she was the strong one. Chester and Sheryl were dazed, which she felt was understandable, because they were the two who had suffered the abuse. She could guess how vulnerable they must be feeling, half-dressed. She felt half-dressed